Sicania
by Arye.Tyler
Summary: Sicania has never and will never have even the remotest interest in motherhood, or... sisterhood, as it were. And then Troy's son washes up on her shores.
1. Chapter 1

Sicania is not the most observant of Nations.

Most of the time, she is largely unaware of the going-ons of the others. What does she care that Greece has torn down Troy? Troy is, as far as she is concerned, as distant as the gods. She knows _of_ the elder Nation, and has seen her face often enough to recognize it in passing, but, for the most part, Sicania's interest in Troy (and, indeed, even Greece) is very, very low.

But the woman that she finds collapsed on her shore during her rounds one day _is _Troy, could be nobody else.

Sicania approaches Troy cautiously and prods her with her spear, but she does not move.

"Finally faded, did you?" Sicania huffs. "Inconvenient, even in death."

She eyes the deceased Nation warily as she skirts around her, but Troy stays still. Well, good, Sicania thinks. That's one less person to try to colonize her shores and absorb her people into their own.

And then the baby starts crying.

The baby that she had not initially noticed.

_'__By the gods, __**why**_?!'

She stalks back towards the baby, which she now realizes is nestled among the reeds by Troy's head. It is a boy child, and Sicania hates boys, but she can't just leave it now that she's turned around and looked at it.

"Oh stop that," she grumbles at the baby-creature as she picks it up. "I've got you. Be quiet."

The thing eventually does stop crying, after she rocks it for a while and then just gives up on calming it and begins to walk. She's going to leave it with humans, she decides. When she gets to Syracuse, probably. With any luck, Greece will find it and put it down.

She pauses in that train of thought and winces.

She's always been harsh, as a matter of necessity. The world is harsh. Sicania has seen Nations destroy each other in their constant bids for realization, and has, in her own right, had to scratch and scrabble to maintain her own. In a world where tribes and empires determine the future, Sicania is determined to continue to exist at any cost.

But maybe…

She glances down at the baby and thinks that maybe "any cost" is going too far. She had no love for Troy, but she didn't particularly hate the elder Nation, either, and this is, presumably, Troy's son. Handing it over to Greece seems cruel, even for Sicania. Easier, yes, but cruel.

"Are you a punishment?" she asks the baby.

It…_he_, she must start making herself think of the baby as a person, just makes gurgling noises at her, which are not only unhelpful but also supremely unattractive. She already doesn't like him.

But she doesn't do the sensible thing and turn him over to humans when she reaches Syracuse. She should, and continually tells herself that she should, but she doesn't. She finds herself, instead, settling down in the ridiculous house (practically a palace, to her eyes) that Greece had built for her.

_"__You'll be comfortable here, Sicania," Greece told her the day that it was finished, proudly showing the girl around._

_"__There will be slaves to run your errands and help with your house, and I will take care of you. Civilization knocks at your door," she added. "And now you must answer."_

_Sicania just sullenly peered into rooms and around corners. She didn't trust Greece's pretty words and expensive houses, and already missed her little flock of sheep. Greece was an Empire, though, and Empires dictated the way of the world, and Greece had dictated that Sicania would have a home in Syracuse._

_"__You will come to like this, I promise that you will. We will greet the coming era together, you and I."_

_"__Maybe," Sicania allowed. "Who really knows?"_

_This didn't seem to particularly please Greece; that dark look that Sicania had seen on Phoenicia and Egypt's faces before came over her, but it passed quickly. Greece was a kinder Nation than most, in many ways. _

_Sicania couldn't wait to see her fall._

She almost lashes out at the slaves when they ask her about the baby. She hasn't thought a whole lot about what she'll do with the baby when Greece inevitably comes knocking, and a paranoid little voice in the back of her mind insists that the slaves know this.

Then she tells that voice to be quiet; she knows what she's doing. She always does.

The baby is settled in quickly, and Sicania finds herself in a position that she has never before been in: motherhood. Oh, Nations have children all the time; Greece alone has several. But Sicania, herself, is young, younger than even her tribes, the personification of an entire place rather than fragmentary parts of it.

_"__My, but you're unusual," a stranger had murmured the day that she found Sicania in the fields. "It usually takes longer for our sort to be born. Or were you created, little shepherdess? Born of the earth, like my kin and I?"_

_At the time, the girl that would become Sicania hadn't known that others like her and her brothers existed. She had just woken up not long before to a calm, golden face looming over her. The woman-Greece, she'd introduced herself as-hadn't been perturbed when Sicania shot up and protested to her being so close to the sheep._

_"__You'll startle them!" she had protested._

_Greece just laughed and gestured to the sheep._

_"__Only you are startled. I was, too, the first time one of our kind visited me. Do you have a name, little one?"_

_She could only blink and shake her head; she understood the woman, but, for once, she had no words. Greece laughed and clasped an arm around the girl's shoulders._

_"__How do you like Athanasia?"_

She doesn't like that name, actually, and only Greece has ever used it. She would prefer that _nobody_ uses it, but Greece says that having human names helps them keep perspective, and remember that humans are more important than them.

Or some such nonsense.

Maybe she'll understand it one day, but right now she has to deal with the _irritating little boy-child, why won't he _sleep?!

She tries to not think too much about what she's been reduced to as she awkwardly hands the child off to a hastily summoned nurse.

Sicania, one of Gaia's own brood, adoptee of Greece, unlikely personification of an un-unified land, mother to the most dangerous child in the Mediterranean.

No, she decides resolutely. She is to be nobody's mother. She will raise him as a sister, like her tribes raised her.

As poorly as it went for her tribes, though, she wonders if she may be better off as a mother.

**There it is. A new story; it's been a while.**


	2. Chapter 2

Sicania is pretty sure that Greece has some sort of ability to sense her presence in Syracuse.

This is only reinforced when, a scarce year after Sicania and the baby have settled into their temporary home (Sicania is, and always will be, a wanderer at heart, but doing her rounds with a baby in tow would be illogical), Greece turns up to darken Sicania's doorstep with her ever-present smile and well-meant advise.

"We were all wanderers at first; eventually, you'll appreciate settled life. Maybe add a few personal touches to your home?" she adds, glancing around. "You seem to have hardly lived here since it was built!"

"I _have _hardly lived here since it was built. What did you expect, Greece? How can one person live in a place like this; how can _you_ live in a place like this?" Sicania demands.

"It takes some adjustment," Greece allows. "But I have confidence that you _will _adjust."

Perhaps it's Sicania's paranoia, but she catches the implicit _"You have no other choice."_ She sometimes wonders if there are other Nations like her out there, forced into the new era by Empires that have long forgotten what it is to be shepherds and nomads.

Despite Sicania's dearest prayers, the boy starts his fussing as they walk by his room. Teething has been hard on him; she sometimes wants to feel bad for him, but she can't afford to. She won't do him any favors by coddling him.

Greece's face lights up like a sunrise, though. She strides into the room to see the baby before Sicania can say or do anything to stop her.

"Precious little one! Surely not yours, Atha?"

"Of course not," Sicania scoffs as she enters the room. "I found him during my rounds."

"Such charity! I had not thought you the type."

"I am not, I assure you."

Greece laughs and tries to pick up the boy, but he is having none of it. He just fusses more, bordering on a tantrum.

"Sister! Sister!" he wails.

It's the only word that he knows, and she's already tired of hearing it. He says it every time he is distressed, or happy, the mood matters little. If the boy wants to express himself, inevitably, he says sister at some point.

It is, admittedly, a little endearing.  
"_Sister!_" he repeats when his earlier pleas get no response.

Phoenicia would have flown into a rage about Sicania hurrying to scoop up her brother and calm him, but Greece just laughs and leans closer to the baby.

"Sisters are hardly replacements for mothers. Where is his?" she asks, squinting at him. "He looks familiar."

"I found the boy; what became of his mother, I do not know," Sicania lies.

Greece hums and ruffles the boy's hair, a mass of goldish-brownish curls enough like Sicania's to give the appearance of sibling similarity. He just makes some odd squeaking noise and hides his face in Sicania's shoulder.

"What a devoted little brother." Greece chuckles and ruffles his hair again. "Surely you've named him?"

"In fact, I hadn't."

She doesn't see the need for names. Humans have them to designate one person from another, but there will never be another Sicania. She does not _need_ to be Athanasia as well as Sicania, and does not understand why she would ever want to.

"Everything needs a name. Do you agree, little one?" Greece smiles a little.

The boy, bless his little heart, shakes his head. He probably doesn't even know what Greece said; Sicania loves him for agreeing with her, anyway. Greece just laughs it off.

"Atha, you seem to be rubbing off on him. I think I will call him Adrastos," she decides resolutely. "It fits him."

Greece spends the rest of the day doing things to make the house "more comfortable" for Sicania and the boy. The little traitor even takes a liking to the name Adrastos and begins to joyfully respond to it. "Adras" turns into the second word that he ever learns; he begins chanting it during the remainder of Greece's months-long visit.

It delights Greece, but Sicania is just glad when it is finally time for the Empire to leave. The Mainland calls, Greece tells her one day. She will return to visit soon.

"Take your time. When you next decide to visit, I hope that I'm not in Syracuse," Sicania grouses as she and Adrastos (she may as well call the boy Adrastos; it makes him happy) see Greece off.

"I pray that you are, and that you've found some levity by then," Greece chuckles.

She grins and ruffles Adrastos' hair and then sets off for her boat. Adrastos, for his part, does not seem to understand why Greece is leaving and calls after her ("Adras!") until she has vanished from sight.

"She'll return," Sicania tells him to calm his fussing as they walk away from the dock. "And, hopefully, by the time that she does, you won't want her around any more than I do!"


End file.
